LITMIR.BIZ

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what the runaway teenager had gone through to survive on the streets.

      ‘They will never forgive me.’ Around and around Nina went.

      ‘Your family just need some time to process things,’ Lavinia said patiently. ‘Annika has been in to see you, and Aleksi has rung from his honeymoon. I know Levander has been in touch from the UK, and Iosef has been in to see you.’

      ‘They are all disgusted with me.’

      Lavinia let out a breath and focussed on painting a middle nail. Sometimes she truly didn’t know what to say. ‘They need time,’ she said.

      ‘I had no choice,’ Nina pleaded, but Lavinia would not be manipulated. She was used to her mother’s ways, and in a lot of things Nina behaved the same.

      ‘There are always choices,’ Lavinia said. ‘Maybe you made the best decision you could at the time.’

      ‘I should have tried to find him,’ Nina said, and Lavinia, who never, ever cried, felt her eyes suddenly well up.

      The nails she was trying to focus on blurred, and for a moment she couldn’t answer—because, yes, Nina should have tried to find him. And, yes, when they were so rich and powerful, surely, surely she should have tried to find her son. And it dawned on her, fully dawned, that the brooding, closed-off man she had met this morning was actually the baby Nina had abandoned.

      ‘Why didn’t you?’ Lavinia couldn’t stop herself from asking. ‘Why didn’t you even try?’

      ‘I saw how everyone hated me when Levander came to Australia—when they found out I knew his mother had died, and that Levander had been raised in Detsky Dom orphanage…’

      Lavinia blew her hair upwards. Nina was getting more and more indiscreet, and the rumour that had quietly blown through Kolovsky—that Nina had known all along—was, to Lavinia’s horror, confirmed.

      ‘Levander wasn’t my blood, and still they hated me. I couldn’t face it if they knew there was more—that I had left my own son too.’

      ‘Well, you have to face it.’ Lavinia bit down on the sudden white-hot fury that shot through her. ‘You have to face it because the truth is here.’

      ‘Does he ask about me?’ Nina begged. ‘Does Riminic ask about me?’

      ‘Nina…’ Lavinia shook her head in exasperation. ‘He doesn’t have a clue that I know who he really is—to me he’s Zakahr Belenki, someone Kolovsky was doing business with, and he’s taken over now that Aleksi is working solely on the Krasavitsa fashion line and you are not well. That’s all he thinks I know.’

      ‘He is beautiful, yes?’ Nina said. ‘How could I not see he was my son? How did I look in his eyes and not recognise him?’

      ‘Maybe you were scared to,’ Lavinia offered. She glanced up at the clock on the wall. She was loath to leave her because at least Nina was talking now, but she had no choice. ‘I have to go, Nina.’

      And then, in the midst of her devastation, as always Nina remembered.

      ‘How is your sister?’

      Lavinia toyed with whether to tell her or not. She had always confided in Nina, but now it just didn’t seem the right time.

      ‘She’s doing okay.’

      ‘She likes kindergarten?’

      ‘She does,’ Lavinia said quietly, thinking of Rachael’s serious little face—a guarded face that rarely smiled. She was reminded of Zakahr.

      ‘You keep fighting for her.’

      Nina stroked Lavinia’s cheek, and Lavinia truly didn’t get it. She had seen the worst of Nina—had heard her bitch and moan, had worked alongside her even as she tried to have Aleksi ousted. With all the shame of her past—the fact she hadn’t fought for her own son—there was so much to despise, and yet Nina could be so kind.

      ‘Give her my love.’

      ‘I will.’ Lavinia stood up. ‘I’d better get back.’

      She really had better get back—hospital visits didn’t really squeeze into lunch-breaks, and she’d have to run through the car park to make it back to the office.

      But as she raced out of the lift she saw Zakahr had beaten her to it.

      ‘How was the doctor?’ he asked.

      ‘Not great.’ Lavinia put on her best martyred face, but instead of being cross with her Zakahr actually wanted to laugh—she was such an actress.

      ‘Poor you,’ Zakahr said, and she caught his eye, not sure if he was being sarcastic—not sure of this man at all.

      He unsettled her.

      All morning he had unsettled her—in a way very few did.

      She would not be intimidated. Lavinia utterly refused to be. Only it wasn’t just that—it was the lack of roaming in those eyes, the stillness in him as he looked not at her, not through her, but into her that made her breath quicken, made the ten-second lift-ride down to the main function room seem inordinately long. And when the lift doors opened she forgot to step out.

      ‘After you,’ Zakahr said, when she had stood for a second too long.

      And because Zakahr didn’t know the way to the stage entrance Lavinia had to lead, awkward now, with him walking behind.

      ‘Hopefully everything’s in place…’ She hung back a touch and walked in step with him, tried to make small talk. But Zakahr, of course, didn’t engage in that.

      Lavinia was just a little impressed with what she had achieved—and just a little praise would have been welcome. Effectively the place had been put into lockdown, and now, as they stood in the wings, instead of models and the new season’s display, it was Zakahr Belenki who was the star of the show, with wary, disgruntled staff waiting to hear their fate.

      He wasn’t in the least nervous, Lavinia realised, as he leant against the wall reading e-mails on his phone while the head of HR read out his credentials to the tense audience. Even Lavinia had butterflies on his behalf, yet Zakahr was as relaxed as if he were waiting for a bus.

      ‘Hold on a second…’ She put her hand up to correct his tie, just as she would have for Aleksi, just as she would have if Nina had had a strap showing as she was about to walk on. But on contact she immediately wished that she hadn’t. The simple, almost instinctive manoeuvre was suddenly terribly complicated. She felt his skin beneath her fingers, inhaled the scent of him as she moved in closer, the sheer maleness of him as she moved his tie a fraction to the centre and went to smooth his collar down.

      His hand shot up and caught her wrist.

      ‘What are you doing?’ Zakahr was the least touchy-feely person on the planet. Flirting, unnecessary touching—he partook in neither. Lavinia seemed a master at both.

      ‘Sorry!’ His reaction confused her. There had been nothing flirtatious about her action, but Zakahr seemed less than impressed. ‘Sheer habit,’ Lavinia explained. Only her voice came out a little higher than normal, and her breath was tight in her chest as those eyes now did roam her body. His hand let go of her wrist, but instead of dropping to his side, the warm, dry hand slid around her neck. Lavinia stood transfixed. For a second she thought he was going to pull her towards him—for a full second she thought she was about to be kissed—but instead his fingers stole down the nape of her neck to the tender skin there, tucked in a label he couldn’t even have seen beneath her thick blonde hair. And then he mocked her with a black smile. She could see the flash of warning, and she could see something else too—the danger beneath the slick surface of him.

      ‘That’s better,’ Zakahr said, his hand still on the back of her neck. ‘It was annoying me.’

      ‘I was just…’ Lavinia attempted to explain again that she had just been straightening his

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